Lajim Ukin

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Lajim Ukin (15 June 1955 – 29 August 2021) was a Malaysian politician from Sabah. He served as the Member of Parliament for Beaufort from 2008 to 2013, and as Deputy Minister of Transport (2008–2009) and Deputy Minister of Housing and Local Government (2009–2012) in the federal government. Earlier, he held the post of Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah for three terms starting in 1999. He was the Leader of the Opposition in the Sabah State Legislative Assembly from 2013 to 2016.

Throughout his career, Lajim belonged to several political parties, including PBS, UMNO, PKR, PHRS, and BERSATU. He was elected to Parliament in 2008 as an UMNO candidate but left UMNO in 2012 to join the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition, which led to the end of his deputy minister role. He ran for re-election in 2013 under PKR but lost the federal seat; he then won the Sabah State Assembly seat of Klias and became the Sabah State Opposition Leader. On 2 October 2016, he left PKR and planned a Sabah-based party, which became Sabah’s PHRS. PHRS was dissolved in 2019, and its members joined BERSATU, where he served as Sabah Election Director and later a BERSATU Supreme Council member (2019–2022).

Personal life: Lajim was born in Beaufort, North Borneo (now Sabah). He was married to Normilah Siong (the couple later divorced). In 2017 he was injured after falling from a train car. He died on 29 August 2021 in Kota Kinabalu due to complications from COVID-19, at age 66. He was buried at the Muslim Cemetery in Kampung Kebatu, Beaufort.